Summary

With 1 in 8 deaths globally due to the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs,
the director-general of the World Health Organization (1) recently called for more scientifically
informed public policies regarding addiction. In the United States, where an
average of 91 people per day die of opioid overdose, a presidential task force
is to present, on 27 June, policy recommendations to combat opioid addiction,
although the House of Representatives passed an Affordable Care Act repeal bill
that would withdraw health insurance from two million people with addictions.
Despite these urgent challenges, research on the brain and its interactions with
the environment, which can help policymakers advance more effective and humane
policies than some traditional approaches to addiction, has only occasionally
been applied in public policy.